It sat there lonely in the bottom right drawer of his and Mom's chest of drawers. Pathetic little black rectangle replete with a flat plastic with bumps where the keyboard should be.
Looking back at it now, it kinda started me down the path in the long ago.
Dad bought it with no ROM and barely enough memory to tap out a program that scrolled "Fuck" down the screen (1) of the little black and white portable TV he kept out in the trailer for those times he needed to escape my Mom's endless chatter and to spend some quality time gluing stamps into some oversized books.
I don't think that he ever did anything with it. But dad did like his talisman. Had his electronic handbooks downstairs, had the encyclopedias, always wanted to show that he was more than the 8th grade formal education that he was branded with. He never quite managed this feat. He was smart enough, he just never manged to necessary tools or the discipline.
So I had the wee little box to myself. I made it do things that it clearly wasn't suited to do. Mostly it was a way for me to feel that the ever so slight edge needed to pass Physical Chemistry (though to be completely honest, my passing was probably more a gift from Marty Fleischmann than any edge in skills. I was able to plumb things together so that they wouldn't leak. If you think that this is a trivial skill, give it a try and get back to me).
No, Dad's old Timex just taught me that a computer is just a tool. If you don't have a specific purpose for which to use them, they are nothing more than a distraction. These days, my use for them is just as a word processor and records management system, and a news feed,
So I had the wee little box to myself. I made it do things that it clearly wasn't suited to do. Mostly it was a way for me to feel that the ever so slight edge needed to pass Physical Chemistry (though to be completely honest, my passing was probably more a gift from Marty Fleischmann than any edge in skills. I was able to plumb things together so that they wouldn't leak. If you think that this is a trivial skill, give it a try and get back to me).
No, Dad's old Timex just taught me that a computer is just a tool. If you don't have a specific purpose for which to use them, they are nothing more than a distraction. These days, my use for them is just as a word processor and records management system, and a news feed,
(1) Hey, I was just thrilled that I didn't have to bring in a program in a shoebox on punchcards. That and I had been dipping into the tequila.
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